


I am ashes where once I was fire

by saintmichael



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Multiple), Adam is Michael, Alternate Season/Series 15, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Paranoia, Post 15x08, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, dual personalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28980528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintmichael/pseuds/saintmichael
Summary: Adam is Michael, and they are struggling to co-exist after Castiel's attack on their mind. They flee an omniscient God.Diverges from canon after 15x08. Ignore the parts of canon that wouldn't really make sense. CW for graphic self-harm.
Relationships: God | Chuck Shurley & Michael, Michael & Adam Milligan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	I am ashes where once I was fire

**Author's Note:**

> It’s such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it.
> 
> Kreia, KOTOR II

He lay on the wall, writhing in agony, as the mental walls he had spent the last ten years painstakingly building back up shattered again and again, completely destabilised by Castiel’s attack.

But _how_ had he-?

Michael didn’t care, he didn’t care, he _didn’t_ care about any of this -

Adam was surging forth, trying to take over; Michael tossed him out, he was useless, needy, pathetic, incompetent, _only caused trouble_ -

One shoulder slammed into the ground, hard, dislocated, but the pain was nothing to Michael. He screeched at his other half but Adam ignored it, desperately trying to keep them together despite the archangel’s lack of control.

“No more games,” Adam promised pleadingly. An empty promise from an empty voice in Michael’s empty head. “Sit back and rest. I’ll front.”

“Staying here was your idea,” Michael pointed out angrily.

“I know - it was a mistake -”

“The mistake was keeping you around. I should have disposed of you the second I returned to Earth,” Michael said icily. His mind was crumbling, and yet somehow he felt an innate calm.

“Dispose of me if you wish. It is up to you,” Adam said, his cold tone an exact reflection of Michael’s. 

“...Don’t talk like that. You’re Adam,” Michael reminded him.

“I am Adam, and you are Michael, and you need to go dormant so I can restabilise your mind before it collapses completely.”

“I can -”

“Can you?”

The colours around them were blurring and vivifying. Michael struggled to concentrate on the conversation, but couldn’t respond. He thought his grip on their shared consciousness was resolute until Adam easily nudged him into unconsciousness.

Adam managed to pull their body into a slouch against the cabinet and looked through the fragile threads that Castiel had so selfishly torn through. “Oh God. Oh God,” he muttered. Could he even fix it this time? 

It had taken so long to unite with Michael originally. The archangel had originally just shut Adam down and tried to exist as half a person. This worked up until Michael got set on fire, which diminished his control of their consciousness. In the Cage, with no hope of escape, Michael had finally agreed to sit still and attempt a reunification of Adam’s soul with Michael’s grace.

They hadn’t managed it. Like fire with a rock, the two didn’t merge at all. Adam’s soul was simply repeatedly _sub_ merged in Michael’s grace over and over again. But as it was, Michael’s grace was slowly chipping away at his soul. The oldest archangel was so potent that even his own reincarnation couldn’t hold him forever. They had had to do _something._

So they had formed their _agreement_. Threads of soul energy that bound them, kept them synchronised, but also forced them to be at a distance from one another. So long as Adam had enough breathing room to think on his own, Michael’s grace didn’t slowly eradicate him.

Now enough threads had been torn that Michael had become unanchored from Adam and was slowly drifting away. He needed to retwine them now because Michael couldn’t survive without Adam. ‘The archangel’ was just a bundle of light and memories that would mindlessly float around the universe were it not tethered to a core.

“How many times must I unmake myself?” he asked in frustration, releasing the chains that remained intact so he could start the whole process anew. It would be harder in his current state. He had needed Michael to guide him last time. He needed his memories. Working with souls and grace wasn’t exactly Adam’s wheelhouse.

He carefully restitched his grace into his soul, hands shaking softly as they penetrated his physicality to interact with the pulsating ectoplasm in his higher dimensions. After he reanchored his grace, he had the trouble of rebuilding his mental defences. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to do this part with his hands, he thought, and retreated into a quiet meditation in order to strengthen his mind. It wouldn’t do much good without Michael here. He was _far_ more unstable than Adam.

Indeed, when the archangel resurfaced Adam could feel the few pillars he had managed to stand up turn back into mind-dust. Events that happened to Michael happened less strongly to Adam and as _that_ particular memory returned to him it was like he was reliving having his mind violated by the malakh all over again.

“Michael - stop,” he said, an array of emotions ploughing through him. “I can’t breathe.”

Michael was _confused_. Why had he been asleep? He was supposed to be in charge during emergencies. Not Adam.

“You are in charge,” Adam assured him. He didn’t approve of lying, but lying to yourself didn’t really count, did it?

Needles in their arms and legs as Michael forced their body off the ground and lurched over to the table in front of them.

“Out - out of here,” he said, hoarsely. “Your blood-brothers are our enemies. They will destroy us.”

  * No. They would not be destroyed again, not for a fourth time. Michael may be the immortal son of God, but he could only take so much until he was erased to dust.



“This is war. I will take action - but -” his mind was scrambling, the solution already found but _moral justification_ a journey he had yet to make.

“They hurt us, and we have to do what we can to escape,” Adam agreed. 

Relief rushed through Michael’s veins. Adam was his moral centre. He couldn’t be in the wrong. 

They were in a library, so it was easy enough to find a pen and paper. Michael sat back down against the cabinet and scribbled out a nonsense spell.

“It’s not real? It looks real,” Adam peered at it, aware that trying to recall how magic worked was a dangerous road for his volatile mind to handle. Michael quickly blocked his path.

“It is real, in that it will do something, but not anything of value,” Michael explained, and put the paper in his pocket. Now they would await the return of the Winchesters and use it as their key to escape this prison.

“We’re waiting?” Adam said, the disappointment in his thoughts too heavy for Michael to handle. Of course, his human half was exhausted by their captivity. They weren’t exactly keeping them in the guest of honour’s room.

Michael released his divinity into the earth surrounding the bunker, creating a small quake that shook the bunker for a few moments. They would certainly come now.

“I can kill them, if you would prefer,” he offered to Adam, but he already knew the answer. Death was Adam’s last resort, but had always been Michael’s first. It was a difficult difference to overcome.

“Are we not just gonna fly away?”

“We must not reveal our strengths to our enemies,” Michael told him sternly. “They believe us captive.” Once, when an alliance had been on the table, their perceived weakness had been an amusement to them. Now it would have to be a weapon.

Adam didn’t argue. It would be strange if he did. This was _Michael’s_ domain.

Dean entered the room, with Castiel. Michael would consider smiting him later, but now, in their condition, they had a good chance of smiting half the continent instead, and he’d never forgive himself for that.

Michael, curled up against the cabinet, didn’t look up at them. “God lied to me. I gave everything for him. I loved him. Why?” He struggled to commit the blasphemy with his own tongue, forcing the evil words out. The hardest part was he wasn’t all that certain he was lying. With everything that had happened, the sick feeling of betrayal oozed through him.

Focus. That came from Adam, but it should have come from Michael. He had a duty to perform.

“I’m not even the only Michael.” That part had been particularly strange to him, and the hurt was genuine. His Father was making copies of him? If not, who else could have possibly done so?

“So yes, I will help you,” he said, rising up to coolly meet their eyes. It took far too much of his energy just to keep his body still and together. “What was done to the Darkness can be done to God, if he is as weak as you say.” Unlikely. “And I know how.”

He had their full attention. If Michael wasn’t in such a pathetic state, he would perhaps feel bad about this. Or Adam would feel bad. He was an adult tricking a pair of children. Morally reprehensible. But their situation demanded it.

He withdrew the spell paper from his pocket and slid it to them on the table. “That’s the spell,” Michael said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

The malakh took off the table and the pair inspected it, only the slightest hint of suspicion creasing Castiel’s brow. “And the ingredients?”

It hadn’t occurred to Michael to write down ingredients. The spell he had written down was not a powerful one; any herbs would do. If he really did somehow have a spell that humans and a deported angel could use to seal away God, it would have to have very specific and powerful ingredients indeed.

He didn’t hesitate. “Myrrh. Cassia. Rockrose.”

“We have that,” Dean interrupted, rudely _and_ unnecessarily. 

Michael intended to rebuke him, but Adam whispered to him to make the final ingredient a troublesome one to find as punishment. Michael would easily oblige his soul’s strange sense of humour. 

“And,” he said, directing a reproving look at Dean. “To bind the spell together, the nectar from a leviathan blossom.”

Castiel and Dean exchanged a glance at that. “A leviathan blossom? What is that, like some kind of flower?”

“A flower that only grows in one place.” Adam was now brimming with spiteful amusement. “Purgatory.”

Tired resignment crossed both their faces. “Great. And how are we meant to get there?”

“I can open a door,” Michael informed them, holding his cuffed hands out to them promptingly. “Now, if you’ll please.”

They again exchanged glances, but Dean unlocked the handcuffs and Michael obligingly opened the door to Purgatory.

“There. It’ll remain open for twelve hours.” 

Castiel and Dean appraised the door warily before sliding their gazes back to Michael. “You coming with us?” Dean asked gruffly.

“No,” Michael said, equally gruff. On what planet were these people living? They had captured and tortured him and because he had given them assistance under duress, they were suddenly friends? He didn’t need to deal with this anymore. Adam needed a warm shower and a soft, comfortable bed to fall into. So terribly close to escape, Michael attempted to exit the room, and was unbelievably stopped _again_ by Dean’s voice.

“Before you go,” the vessel said, “Can I talk to him?”

Him? There was no him. Only them. But they knew what he meant. Adam wanted to leave just as much as Michael, but a quick word couldn’t hurt.

Images of fire and fear from across a decade flashed through his mind, but Michael was completely on guard at the moment. It wouldn’t happen a third time.

“Yeah?” Adam said, turning back to Dean, keeping his expression and voice neutral.

“Adam,” Dean began with some relief, “I want you to know that we are sorry. What happened to you…” he paused awkwardly, unwilling to say it. “You’re a good man. You didn’t deserve that.”

Adam stared. An apology? _Now_? As if Castiel hadn’t violated his mind only a couple of hours ago? He couldn’t get angry, now, not yet, not under their roof. He forced an unnatural lightness to his tone as he replied, “Since when do we get what we deserve?”

His gaze slid over to Castiel before Michael drew it back to Dean to avoid suspicion. Michael would get revenge, he promised. But not now.

“Good luck,” he added, and finally escaped into the halls of their underground prison. Was this leviathan blossom something they’d actually be able to find?

“It depends how much assistance they are receiving,” Michael said. “I made it up, so they will have a great deal of trouble finding it without a benefactor.”

A benefactor? Like Michael? Were they broken like Adam? And yet -

“They are broken, but not like us,” Michael said comfortingly. “We can still save ourselves. We _want_ to be saved.”

The archangel took control of their body and flew them to a city far away. It was raining there, but not substantially, and the drip-drip-drip of the teething rain was far crueller than getting properly drenched.

“We don’t have any money,” Adam reminded Michael as they entered what looked like a five-star hotel. Michael shrugged off his concerns. They had been playing by the ‘rules’ of Earth since they had returned, but Michael would pay them no mind while their health was in danger.

“I would like a room,” he told the snobbish receptionist before she could even greet them. She looked over their body with disdain.

“Good afternoon. Do you have a booking?” she asked, typing into her computer.

“No.”

“We don’t have any rooms available.”

“That’s not **_true_ ** ,” Michael said quietly. “You have several rooms held in reserve for VIPs. I _am_ the archangel Michael. You _will_ give me room 3301.”

Her eyes glazed over as Michael layered his softly-spoken words with his divine eminence. She couldn’t refuse his assertions when he inserted his God-given authority into them.

“Yes, sir,” she said, typing into the computer, her hands and tongue now bereft of her own will. She went into the locked cabinet behind her and retrieved a keycard, wordlessly passing it to Michael.

“Thank you,” he said, slipping it into his pocket.

“It’s - on the thirty-third floor,” she said, confusion fighting its way into her blank eyes.

“I am aware. Thank you, young lady.” Michael walked away, content in the knowledge that his very existence was already slipping out of the woman’s mind. No one ever remembered the prince of shadows.

“Can you do that? I mean, is it ethical?” Adam wondered. They got into a lift, alone, Michael now shifting between semi-dimensions in order to keep them together for just a few minutes longer.

“That is up to you,” Michael replied.

“I know, but is it something _you_ do a lot? Did a lot?” he corrected.

There was a pained silence from the archangel. “In heaven, my divine superiority was known to all the lesser angels already,” he eventually stated. “Employing my authority was not something I could turn on and off. Humans, however, I usually did not influence.”

“Emergencies only. Gotcha.” His words were light, but his head was heavy. There was a muffled screeching from the lift ascending the rails that got louder and louder as Adam listened to it. He covered his ears. “Is that hurting you too?”

“Don’t be so weak,” Michael said coldly. Adam flinched. “You’ve cost us enough.”

The screeching intensified as Michael distanced himself and turned away. Adam tried to grab on to him, to thin air -

The lift opened and Michael stepped out onto the floor. There were only a couple of doors on this floor; when they entered theirs Adam realised it was cause it was more of a huge luxury apartment than a hotel room. Once the door closed behind them Michael’s knees buckled and they fell on the floor together.

“Is this a good idea?” Adam asked, as Michael began crawling on the floor to the sofa in the centre of this room. “Somewhere so ostentatious? Won’t we be found?”

“We can’t hide from Father in our condition,” Michael explained. Within seconds they had become drenched in sweat, and blood was starting to leak out of places it wasn’t supposed to.

“So you think he _is_ our enemy?” Adam asked carefully, feeling his fragile body bruise as Michael dragged it across the floor.

“Don’t know - I don’t know - don’t know,” Michael muttered. He hauled their head off the ground with an almighty effort and it crashed into the sofa cushion. The blood running down their face painted crimson pictures on the stark white material.

“We are already forsaken,” Adam muttered in horror. _Look_ at him.

“No. Not you. I won’t allow it,” Michael growled, and squeezed his own grace tightly. The pain and the screeching subsided just a pinch. “You are too precious.”

“I’m you,” Adam said in incomprehension.

“You’re my soul. I’ve never had a soul before.” His grace slowly ebbed through them, sealing the cracks in their skin from where blood was escaping. “I can’t lose you.”

“Is that why you’re always telling me what a waste of space I am?”

Michael was silent. As Adam thought, despite his cheery behaviour after they came out of the Cage, he would really be happiest if Adam slept forever. People only show their ugliest faces at the _worst_ of times, he thought bitterly. 

“I would never reject you,” Michael whispered. Was that supposed to be an apology?

Adam was still afraid of 

  * _worried about_



the opulence of their hideout. God was one thing, but couldn’t some lesser being easily come and find them right now? There had to be loads of people that would take advantage of Michael’s current condition.

Michael hoisted himself into their feet. “You’re right,” he rasped. “Protective wards. I will.”

“Take it easy,” Adam said in alarm as he staggered over to the wall and produced a marker out of nowhere.

“Can’t - _won’t_ -” The archangel began scribbling on the walls, but the burst of energy they had stolen from his grace was soon receding, and he miserably clutched on the wall for purchase instead. “Adam, _breathe_. You have to keep breathing,” he insisted raggedly.

Adam had 0% control of the body at this point. He could try knocking Michael out of the driver’s seat once more, but in their condition that might literally kill them.

“Don’t -” Michael warned. “I have to -”

Keep going, he meant to say, but warm arms were wrapping around them from behind, skin soft but the grip impossibly firm, and their throat constricted as they tensed their whole body, preparing for a fight -

“ _Sleep,_ ” the woman coaxed, and the floor of consciousness disappeared beneath their feet and they fell into the dark abyss waiting below.

* * *

_Kate smiled down at her perfect baby boy. He had been a big one, painful, but he had come out so willingly and was now napping so quietly in her arms._

_She was alone. The nurses were her co-workers, not quite friends; her conservative family had disowned her for having a baby out of wedlock; the father had left her small town as quickly as he’d breezed in. But here was her baby boy._

_They’d handed her the birth certificate to fill in at her leisure. Kate had already picked out a name: Adam. She wrote it down, but._

_She looked at her baby and then back at the paper. Her hand moved almost of its own volition as, for some strange reason, she inserted “Michael” before “Adam”. Michael Adam Milligan. He looked like a Michael, didn’t he, she rationalised to herself._

_(Who would win? The will of an eons-old archangel or Kate Milligan.)_

_She scribbled out the Michael she had inserted and wrote it_ after _the Adam instead. Adam Michael Milligan. There._

* * *

Adam woke up in a large, warm, _comfortable_ bed, and he _did not_ want to wake up. “Michael?” he slurred into the sheets, rolling around the bed to try and gauge how big it was. It just kept going.

Michael was more concerned with their location. His mind had somehow stabilised while they were unconscious, and his grace recovered, so it was no longer a great effort to spread their gaze beyond what Adam’s eyes could see, tucked under the blankets as he was.

They were still in the hotel room. Strange. There were two women in the adjacent room sitting quietly. Not goddesses, but close. 

“Should I get out of bed?” Michael’s quiet observations _weren’t_ as helpful as the archangel might think. And Adam had had such a shitty day yesterday he didn’t particularly want to get out of bed unless he absolutely had to.

...Michael didn’t think it was necessary, no. They weren’t in any particular danger.

“Well, good,” Adam mumbled, and relaxed in the bed awhile longer.

Eventually, though, he rolled out of bed, hungry. Maybe their mysterious friends would buy them room service.

“Not so mysterious,” Michael told them. “We have met.”

“ _You_ have met,” Adam clarified.

“Yes.”

An older woman with golden skin and golden hair, dressed in a stylish purple coat and heeled boots, sat perched on the couch. There was a little girl in the corner who looked up at them shyly. 

Adam tried to recede into the back of his mind, let Michael take over, but the archangel was staying put in the passenger seat. “Uh, hi,” he said to the pair, and said internally, “Michael, I don’t _know_ these people.”

“Prudence. Charity,” Michael told him, and remained quiet after that.

“They’re _virtues_?” Adam guessed.

“Good morning, Michael,” the older woman said. “I hope you are recovered sufficiently.”

“Um, yeah,” Adam said. He wasn’t in the mood for role-playing as Michael. “It’s Adam, actually. Sorry.”

She frowned. “He’s still unwell?”

“He’s, um,” Adam wasn’t really sure. “I think he’s embarrassed you had to come to our rescue.” That was his best guess, and it didn’t really seem quite right.

Her face softened. “There’s no need for that. You were forced into a difficult situation, we understand.”

Charity came over to them, beaming. “Prudence didn’t want to step in until you asked. I made her. So you can blame me.”

Adam examined the little girl. Born in the hearts of humans, like all virtues, she was older than civilisation itself and yet Adam could understand why _Charity_ would choose to take the form of a small child. One who could still be generous, who had not yet internalised the importance of keeping things for yourself.

A false importance.

“Thank you,” Adam said. “We weren’t in any condition to ask for help. Just ignore Michael.”

Charity turned to Prudence, smiling. “I know,” Prudence replied calmly. “I don’t think I can ignore him, though. I was hoping to talk business with him, now that he’s in better condition.”

Michael _tensed_ , his grace becoming spikes that pushed up against Adam’s soul. Adam tried to ignore the metaphysical pain and asked blankly, “What about?”

“Well. I suppose he’s listening, is he?”

“Always.”

She leaned forward. “You may have noticed, the situation on Earth has deteriorated quite a bit in your absence. We can only do so much. Now that you are back, are you intending to take back control and rein things in?”

Oh. “Should we tell them that our brain is broken in half and we can’t control much of anything right now?” Adam asked Michael privately. 

Michael took control of their body immediately and went over to the walls without even acknowledging the Virtues. “Um, what are you doing?”

“We’re being watched,” Michael said shortly, and continued his warding from earlier. The ladies on the sofa stayed silent, curiously watching him scribble on the walls. Maybe they were used to this kind of stuff from Michael, Adam figured.

Twenty minutes later, they sat back down, facing the Virtues. “Prudence,” Michael said, lowly, “Who sent you here and why?”

“We came here of our own volition.” She glanced at Charity, who was blinking wide-eyes at the archangel.

“I see.”

She frowned. “You don’t trust us.”

“‘Trust’ is a difficult quality to quantify. But these are interesting times, and we are being watched. I am being as open with you as the situation permits.”

“We’re still being watched?” Adam asked. “Are you sure?” 

“Without a doubt. I despise it.” 

“So you can’t tell us your intentions?” Prudence asked, softly disappointed.

“I have now been told by multiple sources that my Father has returned to taking an active role in Earth’s activities. I am not able to supersede his will by any means, so I suppose I have zero intentions at this point,” Michael told them.

“Did you not take action against him only yesterday?” she pressed.

“I did not.”

What they want from Michael is something he is unable to give. Hiding in the shell of the once assured commander is a frightened human teenager holding on to the scraps of his old existence. Adam wished he could explain, but he understands why Michael is keeping that information under lock and key.

“I see,” Prudence echoed, but true to her name, did not push the matter after his light refusal. They hung around for a light chat over breakfast; it was a little awkward, with how antsy Michael was getting, but Adam was appreciative of the pleasant company. He was also glad Michael seemed to have actual friends, even if he didn’t think of them as such.

Once they were gone Michael was up and about, scanning the room for danger. “You okay?” Adam asked.

“Crawling on our skin, like scarab beetles. Eyes. Millions of eyes.” 

Michael shunted their body a thousand miles away, _slamming_ it through dimensions instead of elegantly flying them there.

“You sure that’s not just anxiety?” 

He moved them again. “It is _not_.”

Adam was feeling ill already. Michael had done this the other day, after they dealt with the demon at the diner. “Millions of eyes? There’s no way there’s that many people watching us.”

 _Slam. Slam_. Michael was going to rip their body in half if he wasn’t careful. “Not millions of people. One person. With millions of eyes.”

 _Slam. Slam. Slam_. Right. Adam didn’t bother asking who. There was only one person who could scare the archangel this much.

 _Whoosh_. Adam’s body felt lighter as Michael finally took flight, and when they landed it felt looser, too; like he had taken off a layer of clothing.

“Better,” Michael muttered, taking a look around at their environment. A purple haze was thick in the air, and they were in an empty ice-covered wilderness. “Should have thought of this sooner. Stupid.”

“Where are we?” Adam asked. The haze was reflected on the ice, making it a nice purple colour. The whole place was quite pretty.

“Off-planet. Of course he’s focusing on Earth. Best to remove ourselves from the planet entirely.”

Michael flew them around a bit more before he settled on a warmer planet, with a bit of life: mostly flora, though. “So - so what,” Adam asked, as Michael leaned back against a rock. “We can’t go back to Earth?” This - this was the opposite of what he wanted. He knew his life couldn’t go back to _normal,_ but -

“No,” Michael answered quietly. “Now that we are out of Father’s sights, he will forget us, like everyone else. Then we can safely return to Earth without drawing his attention.”

“You sure about that?” Adam said. “He remembered to put us in the story the other day, didn’t he?”

“Father opened the Cage with the rest of Hell, an oversight. The demons took notice of _that_ , and it reminded Father of our existence. He simply took his time before working us back into the fold. So long as we lay low, that shouldn’t occur again.”

“You’re sure he’s gonna forget about us? He’s our dad.”

With slightly less confidence, Michael said, “He usually does, yes.”

“Usually?”

“When I was a child, it was harder to hide from him. But that hasn’t been the case for a long time.”

“Because he stopped caring,” Adam sighed. “So if he suddenly decides to care about this, we’re screwed.”

Michael frowned. “Why do you have no confidence in my abilities?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s because you’re a fucking coward who runs and hides at the mention of your Papa,” Adam snapped.

“Are… you angry?” Michael asked slowly.

“I don’t want to ‘lie low’ for the rest of my life in case my ex-Father finds me and turns me into a punch bag for his new favourite pets. I also don’t want to be forgotten by everyone I ever meet and become a ghost walking the Earth and I can’t,” Adam took in a big gulp of air, “I can’t believe you’ve designed your entire existence to function like this and I cannot, I will not forsake having real relationships just because _you_ value your self-preservation over having people care about you _because you’re scared of your Father_.”

Michael stared blankly at him. “What? Not going to say ‘It’s up to you’?” Adam mocked, emptiness in his tone or heart.

“As you say, I value self-preservation over anything else. I will protect you even in the heat of the moment.” He paused. “We do not have to hide from human friends. But we cannot let Father remember us. He cannot be reasoned with.”

“How do you know,” Adam said, bitter and tired. “Have you ever even tried?”

Michael was silent.

* * *

_“Mommy,” Adam said. “Are we going to see Papa today?”_

_“Papa?” Kate asked, already on edge. Adam didn’t have a Papa._

_“There were lots of people at his house yesterday,” the five-year old said. “Are we going again?”_

_Kate had been with Adam nearly all of yesterday, and struggled to think of what he could be talking about. “Church, honey?”_

_Adam brightened. “Yeah!”_

_“We only go to church on Sundays, Adam,” she reminded him. “You’re going to kindy today. Tom and Alex and Milly are going to be there, okay?”_

_Adam was usually excited by the mere mention of his friends, but now he looked on the verge of tears. “I wanna see Papa,” he insisted._

_Kate bit her lip. Adam could be a little strange sometimes, and she tried to let him be, but she’d been awake for over forty hours and had been counting on having Adam at school so she could get some rest. “We’re going to church on Sunday, okay, honey? You have school today.”_

_Adam burst into tears._

* * *

Michael forced his other half into unconsciousness. He was a waste of space, a waste of time and apparently now he was a security risk. And yet Michael needed him because he was _him_. How was that fair?

Not that Michael believed in _fair_ . In a _fair_ world, an ugly, self-centred _cowardly_ creature like him would never have made it to a position of such eminence -

 _Don’t forget incompetent, corrupt and stupid_ , the snake known as self-doubt hissed into his ear. _What right do you have to judge the boy?_ You _are dragging_ him _down._

It was true. His soul had finally escaped him, had achieved the miracle of starting a fresh clean slate with a new name and life, and then his grace had been _forcefully_ shoved back into him, turning him into even more a shambling, grotesque abomination than he ever had been.

If Michael could kill only _Michael_ \- the ancient being that had committed far too many crimes for someone else’s sake - and leave Adam intact, he would. Instead, he had to protect Adam with everything he had. And apparently Adam hated him for it.

What was Michael to do? He thought it best to keep running, but if that would make Adam miserable - and, besides, he had run about as far as one could possibly get from Earth.

  * in _this_ universe.



Excitement crackled like lightning in his shared chest. It was such a _dangerous_ , _stupid_ idea, but why then did it sound so fun?

To escape to one of these parallel universes Father had been creating. It would either immediately draw His attention, or conceal them from Him completely. A gamble. Michael’s grace was igniting from the sheer thrill of the idea. To actually _put_ into _practice_ -

But he would need to consult Adam first. And what if Adam said no? 

Why was that a scarier idea than being found by Father?

He reluctantly woke the boy up again. Adam wasn’t too happy once he stirred back into consciousness. “Michael. Why the hell did you knock me out? Did something happen?” He looked around, but the planet remained as vacant as ever.

“You were being disrespectful. You compartmentalised me for a reason, and I am trying to do my job,” Michael reminded him.

“And I’m trying to do _my_ job. I’m supposed to be making the decisions for the new me, right? Why do we have to do everything the way you _used_ to do it?”

Michael’s heart sank. Adam was not in an agreeable state. He would say “no” to universe hopping.

His other half noticed his unhappiness immediately. “What, what’s wrong now?”

“I had an idea. A proposal,” he amended. “We could travel to one of the parallel universes that Father has created to amuse himself.”

Adam drummed his fingers on the boulder behind him. “That doesn’t sound like ‘lying low’. Why would we do that?”

“Yes, it will instantly identify us to Father if he is watching for it. If he is not, as is likely, he may not even be able to detect us once we are not in the same universe. I thought you may prefer this, as you will be able to act more freely.”

“Is this your idea of a compromise?” his human half asked bleakly.

“No.” Michael thought it was pretty clear this was an option that suited him _perfectly_ , no compromise involved.

Adam laughed bitterly, readjusting their position against the rock. “Well, then. I’ll think about it,” he said, not that there was much to think about. He knew his other half well enough to know that he wasn’t going to fly them back to Earth anytime soon. So this was probably the only way Adam would be able to interact with real people again.

The archangel kept claiming Adam was in charge, so why was it that Adam was treated as his prisoner? With glumness he touched his eyes, the windows of his new Cage.

“Fine.”

The archangel was _brimming_ with glee at his decision. Adam didn’t understand. To date his other half hadn’t really _wanted_ anything, so why this reaction?

“There’s nothing new under the sun,” Michael replied cheerfully. “A _new sun_ , however? Adam, surely you can see the novelty in this.”

Not really, no. From what they had heard, the other places were apocalyptic wastelands. And Adam experienced enough of that in his own mind every day.

Still, he ceded control. “If you really think this is a good idea,” he sighed.

Michael _did_ . He cloaked himself in the finest threads of Darkness and flew them to the intersection of reality and unreality, the crossroads of space and time. It was easy enough to find the hole the Nephil had burned out in his genesis, and they slipped _through_ -

It was grey, dark, and devoid of life in this alternate universe. As Castiel had shown Michael, except the archangel’s superior eyes could _behold_ how _tiny_ this place was. 

“It’s tiny?” Adam asked, looking around the great expanse of wilderness they’d landed in.

“In a macro sense,” Michael elucidated. “Only the Earth has been duplicated. Even the stars in the sky have been painted on.” They looked up to the night sky as one.

“So we can’t hide here?”

“We can hide here. Its size is not important, what matters is that Father’s gaze is not directed at this universe.” Michael frowned. “However, _this_ particular parallel universe is probably the most dangerous. If we can get to yet another one, we will be safer yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Father’s current favourites have been here before. Meaning there’s a chance that they should decide to return here for some reason. _If_ that does occur, Father’s eyes will naturally follow them. If we go somewhere they haven’t been, the chance of them getting there becomes microscopic.”

“Alright - alright. I agree.”

“Good,” Michael said. “The path here was already carved out for us. Travelling somewhere else will be much more difficult.”

“And? That’s your department, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Michael, “But, should we ever re-attempt integration in the future, it would be best if you watched closely at times like these.”

Just the thought of integration made Adam nauseous. The hundreds of attempts they had made in the Cage had been absolutely horrific. 

“I don’t - I don’t mind learning some magic, I guess,” Adam muttered against his will. Yes. His cool archangel friend was going to teach him a new trick. That’s all this was.

“It’s not ‘magic’,” Michael corrected calmly. “Attend.”

* * *

_When Adam was seven, he spotted an older girl at school laughing and chatting with her friends._

_He recognised the loud and excitable girl at once._

_“Gabriel!” he said, running over._

_They all looked over at him; Gabriel turning demure as soon as she realised his attention was on her. That was just like her, he thought._

_“Um, hello?” she said, glancing to her friends like there was a joke she was missing._

_“Hello, Gabriel,” he greeted. “I’ve missed you.” His heart beat loudly at the reminder. She looked confused._

_“Um, I’m not Gabriel,” she said shyly. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”_

_“Yes, you are,” Adam insisted._

_“No…” she giggled awkwardly._

_“You are Gabriel. Stop lying.” His heartbeat was getting faster, louder. This had to be Gabriel - otherwise - otherwise -_

_“Go away, you little creep,” one of the other girls said, standing up. “Leave Lacey alone.”_

  * _Gabriel was dead, wasn’t she?_



_Adam screamed._

_And screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until some teachers came and took him to the nurses office._

_They made him talk to a counsellor, but Adam didn’t know why he had been upset. “Who is Gabriel?” she kept asking._

_“I don’t know,” Adam would reply._

_“Is Gabriel a friend of yours? One of your parents’ friends?”_

_“I don’t know any Gabriel.”_

_“Someone you saw on TV? Or did you go to the movies recently?”_

_Adam kept shaking his head. He didn’t understand what was going on._

_Mom was called in to take him home, even though he was fine. “He has nightmares sometimes,” she told the counsellor and vice-principal. “He’ll be okay.”_

_Kate led an embarrassed Adam to her car. “How are we doing, honey?” she asked, once they were on the road._

_“I’m okay,” Adam mumbled._

_“It’s not nice to scream at people, okay?”_

_“I know. I didn’t mean to scream. I don’t know why I screamed.”_

_“Okay. And how was it at Mrs Walsh’s last night? Did you have a good time?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Did you have lots of dinner? Any dessert?”_

_“Um, she let me have a piece of cake.”_

_Kate raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t hear about this. What kind of cake?”_

_“It was fruitcake. And she put cream on top.” It hadn’t made it taste any nicer._

_“And this was before bed?”_

_“Yeah. Um, I had a bath afterwards. And did my homework.”_

_“Did you have any nightmares?”_

_“No, Mom.”_

_“We’re sure? Not even the scary voice?”_

_“We’re sure,” Adam said quietly._

_Adam had to do a bunch of tests, a lot of which he’d already done, when Mom had worried about other incidents. This time it was because the school was insisting on it, in case he had some kind of disorder that was going to impede his learning or disrupt others._

_They didn’t find anything. They never found anything. Adam had never been diagnosed with anything more than dyslexia, and he had excellent grades and an excellent social life._

_And soon, everyone forgot._

_Everyone_ always _forgot._

* * *

Most of the worlds they managed to travel out were even less fleshed out than the first. There was something hollow and depressing about meeting these soulless people who thought they were _real_ but lived in a universe the size of Kansas.

Adam nearly asked Michael to put him to sleep until they found a populous world, but he didn’t. He had to start acting grown-up. He had to be able to handle stuff like this.

“No, you don’t,” Michael said. “You are but 29. You are a child yet.”

“Only compared to you.”

“That is the only comparison we should make.”

Eventually they ended up in a fairly expansive and populated version of Earth. Angels hadn’t even come into play in this universe; apparently Sam had become king of Hell and attempted a takeover of Earth, and Dean had sacrificed himself in order to stop him.

It must have provided God with plenty of amusement if he had hung around long enough for the world to get as big as it had.

Big enough for them to settle down and get _some_ kind of life going. Adam wished Michael could just confront their dad, but since that wasn’t going to happen, he was fine with living in a fake city and doing his fake job and being friends with people with fake souls. Michael considered them closer to animals than humans, but honestly, Adam couldn’t tell the difference. There were still demon survivors on the planet so Michael would go out and pick them off during the nights. 

“When we go home, are you going to do that as well?” Adam asked one night.

“Kill demons?” Michael was confused. “They should not be walking the Earth at all. Perhaps if Father goes back to sleep, we can clean up.”

“Demons _and_ monsters,” Adam replied. The memories of the ghouls eating him and his mother alive continued to haunt him in his darkest hours. He wanted them gone.

“It’s up to you,” Michael said unhelpfully. It never was.

They were at the markets, one day, Adam inspecting the oranges at Sally’s stall. The middle-aged woman was quite kind to him, but perhaps because she thought he was soft in the head. Adam hadn’t yet cured himself of the habit of talking to his other half out loud, so all anyone else saw was a young man muttering away to himself all day long.

“Looking for one in particular?” she teased, as he tested out a couple of different oranges.

“Uh, nah. But there’s meant to be a way to find out the good ones, right?”

She gasped, a hand held mockingly to her heart. “Adam! They’re all good!”

He laughed, but could feel Michael tensing up, preparing for flight. “What -”

Sally, too, went quiet, staring over his shoulders, eyes wide. Adam turned and saw

  * the world _disappearing_ behind him, sky and ground and stalls and people being eaten up by _nothingness_. Being erased from existence.



Michael fully took over, then, took _flight_ , not to anywhere in the world but once more to where dimensions intersected with one another, and dove down into another stream of existence, finding a new universe to hide in in that now-familiar way.

“What - what’s going on?” Adam shouted at him as they flew.

“Don’t know,” Michael said, terse, panicking. “The place was getting deleted.”

“What? By who?”

“You know who.”

“He found us?”

“I don’t think so.” Michael hadn’t felt anyone watching them, but perhaps he had simply become lax. “He may have simply decided to do some spring-cleaning.”

“Do we have to go back then? He wouldn’t just destroy that one, right?”

They landed, and Michael didn’t answer straightaway, trying to get his bearings. But Adam was probably right - hiding in alternate universes was likely no longer sustainable.

“Ah, Michael?” a snide voice said. Michael turned, slowly, to see a familiar face. It was Sam Winchester’s, but possessed by Lucifer. “However did you escape?”

“Lucifer,” said Michael, guardedly. A diminished version of his brother, but still dangerous.

“I thought you learned your lesson the last time,” Lucifer continued. “It’s safest inside the cage, isn’t it, Michael? Didn’t we agree?”

Angels were invisibly landing all around them, in perfect formation. They must be working for Lucifer. Michael’s curiosity was struck, but he couldn’t get trapped here. He would need to find a safer universe. He began to take flight -

And Lucifer intercepted him, slamming him into the ground. “Tsk, tsk. You would run from _me_? How far you’ve fallen, brother.”

“Sir,” another angel said, stepping into view. “We’ve inspected the Cage. It’s intact, and St. Michael is still sleeping inside.”

Lucifer frowned. “Why are you telling me something that’s obviously true? Michael is right here. He must have set up a decoy.”

“Yes, sir,” the angel said, wincing. “Do we have your permission to open the Cage to investigate?”

“Yes, go,” Lucifer flapped a dismissive hand at him. “Really!” he said to Michael.

Michael lay there perfectly still, staring up at the ghost of his brother. It was nice, albeit weak of him, to pretend for a moment that _one_ of his brothers was still alive. “Lu,” he murmured.

Lucifer’s expression softened and he bent over him. “Michael, _please_ stay in the Cage. When Father returns, I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

“Father’s not returning,” Michael informed him. “He’s left this universe for good. It’s up to you to decide whether to forgive your Michael or not.”

“ _My_ Michael…?” Lucifer asked, a slightly derisive expression forming on his face.

The lives of the angels surrounding them were snuffed out all at once. Lucifer seemed to realise a little slower than Michael did, and a blade was quickly at Michael’s neck. “What -”

“Hey, Lu,” a quiet voice whispered shakily from behind Lucifer. It was meant to be Michael, he thought, wearing Dean, but he was thin and pale and like he was about to collapse on himself at any time.

“Michael?” Lucifer said, immediately rising and turning to the newcomer.

He laughed nervously. “It’s Michael, it’s Michael,” he agreed. “They let me out of the Cage today. I was happy. I slit their throats.”

Lucifer approached him at an angle until both of them were in his sights. “I don’t understand,” he said at length. “Who is this?” He indicated Michael.

The alternate Michael stared at his doppelgänger, touching his own face in confusion. “Who?” he echoed.

“How long have you been in the Cage?” Michael wondered. He didn’t do well in imprisonment, certainly. Had he not had personal issues to focus on, the ten years he himself had spent would have been intolerable.

“Eight thousand, six hundred and sixty-four years,” said the other. “But Lucifer and Father are letting me leave today,” he added, beaming.

“That’s a long sentence. What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he wailed. “They lied, they lied, and then they locked me up!”

“My condolences,” said Michael, standing up. Lucifer backed away even further, but his focus should have been on the wall of erosion approaching them. Michael flew away at once, leaving the broken pair be.

That world was erased more quickly than the last. Michael slipped into a new one, but barely had his feet touched the ground before _this_ one was vanishing around him. He speedily fled into the next, the next, the next, no time to think, the archangel moving at his quickest to escape total annihilation. 

“We need to get home,” Adam insisted but Michael didn’t have time to find it _and_ navigate _and_ avoid Father -

As he escaped the dozenth disintegrating universe in a row he felt a soft hand wrapping around his neck, dragging him backwards into oblivion. Michael choked and swept his bladed wings at his attacker but they stilled before meeting anything physical. Paralysed.

  * “Have you been _hiding_ from me?” He said, disappointment evident in his tone.



Hide. Yes. Michael tried to cover himself in shadows but it was impossible while being illuminated by the full force of Father’s gaze. Father continued dragging him back, not into deletion but into a softly carpeted room, flinging him on the floor and standing over him with his hands on his hips.

“ _What_ do you think you’re _doing?_ ” Father snapped, his voice impossibly loud, and Adam burst into tears. He tried to spread his wings and fly far far away but Michael was _gone_ and there was a crunching noise and intolerable pain when he tried on his own. Father’s expression remained hard but he bent down and laid a hand on Adam’s wing; the pain stopped, at least, but now Father’s face was inches away and that was even scarier.

“Michael,” Father said in disbelief, “Stop acting like a child. Answer me.”

Adam was a child though, Adam was a _baby_ , he was small and helpless and Father was too big and too much and he was going to erase Adam just like he’d erased dozens of universes. Adam curled into a ball, hoping his Father would lose interest and leave.

“Stop hiding,” Father ordered, but Adam wasn’t hiding, he didn’t want to hide, it was Michael but now when Adam was at his most scared Michael had abandoned him.

  * Confront - confront Father. That’s what Adam had wanted to do, wasn’t it?



“Go away,” Adam mumbled, as Father tried to untuck his head from his chest.

“Go - go away? No, Michael, I don’t think so. Look at me. _Look at me_.”

Adam couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t. He tried flying away again and screamed as his bones crunched and twisted even worse than before.

“ _Enough_ ,” said Father, and the paralysis overcame him again, much more absolute and binding this time, and Adam lay prone as Father repaired his broken wings once more.

“I don’t know what purpose you think throwing a tantrum would serve,” Father said coldly, “But I’m not having it. When I come back you will tell me exactly why you were sneaking around my alternate universes _and_ apologise for causing trouble. Am I clear?”

He vanished immediately without waiting for an answer; not that Adam could move his tongue or open his mouth anyway. 

Michael was gone, Michael had abandoned him when he most needed him. Adam didn’t know anything about Father or how to deal with him so how was he supposed to handle this on his own? If Michael was in control, Adam was sure, at least he wouldn’t keep instinctively breaking his wings at the sight of him.

Michael flew _so much_ , how had Adam not learned how to spread them by now?

“You’re a child,” Michael told him, his voice sounding like it was very far away. “Such things are learned slowly.”

“Michael? Where are you?”

“I am here. Your panic attack overrode some of your mental function, including me. I am just a mental function,” Michael reminded him. His educational tone was soothing, at least.

“Panic attack?”

“It’s only natural. Father is very powerful, and you are only human. This is the outcome I hoped to avoid.” His voice was clearer now, closer. “The gamble didn’t pay off. I didn’t foresee Father deciding to erase the alternate universes all of a sudden.”

“He’s going to kill me,” Adam said miserably. “I won’t be able to tell him what he wants to hear when he gets back. And then he’ll kill me.”

“If you remain calm enough, I should be able to take control,” Michael told him. “We weren’t doing anything wrong, so I think he’ll let us go.”

That was the stupidest thing Adam had ever heard. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Father seems to think we were up to something more than just an extreme hide,” Michael said doggedly. “Once I tell him this is not the case, he won’t be mad.”

“But he’s already mad at us for hiding anyway. And he’ll just think we’re lying.”

“Father can tell if we’re lying or not.” Michael’s grace gently brushed up against his soul. “He _is_ mad about the hiding, but it’s not his main concern. He’ll let us off with a warning.”

It seemed more and more that Michael didn’t know as much as he let on, but then Adam knew even _less_ than the remains of the archangel, so what hope did they have?

“Okay,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me again.”

“I’ll do my best. Remain calm.”

When Father returned hours later, and loosened the paralysis on their body, Michael immediately surged to control their vessel, keeping Adam pushed down far enough that his emotions couldn’t overwhelm them.

“Father,” he greeted stoically.

“You’ve decided to stop impersonating a toddler, have you?” Terribly snippy of Father. As delicious as it would be to tell Father that he currently _was_ , essentially, a toddler, it would also endanger Adam.

“My apologies, Father. I have been under a great deal of stress as of late.” He sat up to give Father his most even stare.

“Have you,” Father said shortly.

“You may recall I was in the Cage for an extended period,” Michael reminded him.

“Yes. Well, I thought you were doing better. You seemed happy once you were back on Earth.”

“Happy is not healthy, Father. I am broken. I may not deserve it, but I ask that you be patient with me.”

“Why don’t you deserve it?”

With confusion, Michael replied, “I think I do deserve it, but I don’t control _your_ judgement.” 

“Mhmm. Tell me why you’ve been sneaking around.”

“I could feel your eyes on me. I don’t like being watched.”

“My son had what appeared to be a total mental breakdown. Of course I would watch him after that.”

Michael struggled to not say, “And whose fault is that?” Don’t challenge Father, don’t accuse him of helping Castiel destroy your mind, don’t cause trouble for Adam. Father will not hurt us if we stay meek.

“Michael,” Father said, his voice a touch softer. “Tell me what you were doing in the alternate universes.”

Michael’s brow lifted with genuine bewilderment. Did Father _really_ think he could have been doing anything harmful out there? “I was hiding. It was a good hiding spot, until you started tearing it down.”

“Hiding,” Father echoed with a hint of disbelief. “And that’s all?”

“Yes. You can read my mind, Father; am I lying?”

Father crouched down and leaned in close. “To be honest, Michael, I’m having trouble reading you at all. Your mind seems very fractured right now.”

It was, in a literal sense. But Michael hadn’t thought that would cause any problems for Father. He blinked up at him.

“Hmm,” Father said, his fingers ghosting over Michael’s forehead. “Well, Michael, I’m not sure what to do with you. I have a lot on my plate right now -”

“Just forget about me,” Michael said, relieved. “I can handle myself.”

“No, I think forgetting about you was a mistake.” Father’s fingers moved to Michael’s chest - piercing the metaphysical barrier and feeling his grace, his _soul_ -

“What have you done to the vessel?” Father muttered, feeling the fragile strings currently attaching them.

Michael remained silent. Ultimately, if Father knew that Michael had fallen and become Adam, there was a good chance he would react angrily, and Adam would suffer.

Michael had always been held to a higher standard than the rest of his brothers. And falling was the worst of the worst of crimes.

Father waited for an answer, and when he got none, his face fell. “Stay in the house,” he decided. “I have to finish tidying up this Earth business. Try to keep it together until I come back, okay?” He patted Michael on the shoulder and stood up.

“Here -” he snapped his fingers, and they shifted elsewhere; a different room, this one with doors, and windows, and furnishings. “I know you’re claustrophobic; it’s not a prison. Just don’t leave this dimension, okay?” 

Again he waited for a reply. This time he didn’t break his gaze until Michael had given him the slightest of nods in return. “Good. Keep it together, okay? I’ll be back soon.”

He disappeared again. Michael stretched out his legs and carefully allowed Adam’s consciousness to rise back to the surface. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Adam, his trembling voice betraying him. 

“Once more, we are imprisoned.” Michael stared bleakly at their surroundings. “I have failed you.”

Adam sighed. “If I thought you could have prevented this, I’d be mad. But…”

How could they fight against God? Maybe not omniscient or omnipotent, but close enough. Adam recalled the sheer terror of fleeing the dying universes; in the end, they had survived. Adam had to find contentment in that.

If God wanted to end them, surely it would be just as easy for him.

“If we obey and don’t try to run away, that won’t happen,” Michael said optimistically. “Father is being very benevolent.”

“Yeah, cause he knows we’re broken. Michael, he’s gonna find out I’m you sooner or later. What the hell are we gonna do?”

“Hopefully he won’t find out.”

“Are you out of your mind? There’s a good chance he already knows and he’s just messing with us. You _know_ he toys with people; it’s all he does.”

“No,” Michael said. “He doesn’t know. It won’t occur to him.”

“He was literally prodding at us to see what was wrong,” Adam said, on the verge of exploding.

“And if we pretend to recover he won’t prod at us again. You see?”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t know if we can manage that. We’re pretty far gone.”

“Let’s just give it a try,” Michael suggested, and stood them up. “Let’s explore this new prison of Father’s.”

“Sure, whatever,” Adam muttered. How great for Michael that he could still be cheerful even now. Adam’s heart was filled only with fear and dread.

* * *

_“Mom?” Adam asked, and Kate jumped, coffee leaking out over the sides of her mug. It was 8am and she had just gotten home from work; she hadn’t expected the nine-year-old to be up this early._

_(Yes, she left Adam alone at home if she had a night. Money was tight, and he always fed himself, brushed his teeth and went to bed on time. He was a perfect little boy, and what else was she to do?)_

_“Can we go to the lake?” he said, and he was speaking with that eerily blank voice he used when he was getting into one of his strange moods._

_“What lake, honey? Cottonwood?” It was the closest one._

_Adam stared at her. “The lake in the garden. Papa will be there. I miss him.”_

_Papa, huh. When Adam started talking about his mysterious Papa, he was definitely having an off day._

_“Is it a big one?” They could take a weekend trip, she supposed. They very rarely were able to go on vacation. There was Big Spirit Lake down south in Iowa, or maybe they could go north up the state to an even bigger one._

_“It’s Papa’s lake,” Adam said, confused._

_“Okay. Well, how about I check with work when I can take some leave and we’ll go find your lake then, okay?”_

_“Okay,” Adam said, looking a little happier._

_“Good. Have you brushed your teeth yet?”_

_“No, Mom.”_

_“Okay. Off you go,” she said, patting him firmly on both shoulders._

_A month later they went to a lake just under two hours away, long enough that Adam could feel like he was going on an adventure but not so long that he would get sick of being in the car. His excited face was glued to the window the whole drive. Kate smiled as she listened to the easy hits on the radio and enjoyed the drive._

_Once their things were safely in the motel, they went out onto the shores of the lake. Kate had made him put on his swimmers under his clothes and he had a floatation ring around him; he could act well under his age when he was in one of his moods and she couldn’t risk him running out into the water all of a sudden. Instead, he sat on the sands and stared out into the water in quiet contemplation. She joined him, her arm curling protectively around his back._

_“Papa isn’t here,” Adam said. Her heart sank._

_“I’m sorry, baby,” she said. He looked up to her with a confused frown._

_“Mommy’s here,” he said, seemingly to himself. “Mommy’s always here, and Papa’s never here.”_

_Kate didn’t quite know what to say to that. “I love you, honey,” she said gently. Adam broke into a smile._

_“I love you too.”_

_He never mentioned a Papa again._

* * *

“I hate this,” Adam complained, on what had to be his hundredth lap of the house that day. “Fuck it, we should have just stayed in outer space.”

“Hush,” Michael said. “Father will let us go soon.” The human’s whining had quickly worn on him. Michael frequently considered putting him to sleep, even though he _knew_ it was bad for their mental health -

“I can hear what you’re thinking. Fuck off,” Adam said, crashing onto the couch in front of the TV. “I hate you, I hate this, I hate Father.”

“You hate _my_ Father,” Michael corrected him. “Remember that he is watching, and it will do us a disservice to have him think our identities are blended.”

“Well, he can stop watching us any time he wants,” Adam said loudly, scratching his arms at the reminder. It really did feel like he had insects skittering across his body whenever he was reminded that Father’s eyes were on them. Michael had to frequently step in to heal the bloodied scratches.

“Stop that. Adam,” Michael said, exasperated. The human would be the end of _both_ of them. 

“Real nice dad you got, Michael,” Adam said at the top of his voice. “You know if my mom thought _I_ was sick she wouldn’t lock me up in the house and go off to Hawai’i for six months but I guess she isn’t as wise and all-knowing as your dad.”

“Stop,” said Michael, surging to the top of their shared mind and attempting to shove Adam down into unconsciousness. The human resisted him, though; he had assumed too much control of the vessel recently for Michael to usurp him so easily. “Be quiet and _behave._ ”

“No,” Adam hissed. “No.” He was sick of behaving. He was not Michael, he was _Adam_. 

Michael sat stock-still on the couch. “All we have to do is this. When we do this for long enough, Father will realise we’re not worth watching and turn his eyes elsewhere.”

“You’re trying to defeat him with boredom? The god with a million eyes? No matter what you do, he’ll always keep one on you. It’s not like it’s a stretch.”

“It is no stretch at all for him, and yet he frequently averts his gaze from me,” Michael replied. “This will work.”

He tried, he tried, _God_ he tried to be boring. Adam had been boring for the first eighteen years of his existence, he thought; he just needed to keep doing that. He ate, he drank, he watched TV, exercised, and slept. He resisted the urge to bolt through open doors whenever the panic overcame him; they couldn’t go anywhere, anyway, not with Michael refusing to fly them anywhere. The world just _ended_ outside the garden of their house-prison.

He was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling when a great weight was lifted off of him: Father’s eyes had left him. He shuddered in relief and _shock_ \- Michael was _right_ -

“Do not celebrate prematurely,” Michael cautioned. “Father knows exactly where we are. We must keep up our act of normality.”

“But he’s not watching. Can’t we just run?”

“This place is completely sealed off. It’s not inescapable, like the Cage, but it will take me some time to create an exit. I think we should wait before taking risks like that.”

Adam didn’t want to wait - he wanted to talk to actual _people_ instead of the inside of his own skull - but Michael was struggling just as much as he with their captivity, so his sudden conservatism must be important.

Adam couldn’t restrain himself from a full body jump when, an hour later, an intense sensation passed through his body. Not pain, not pleasure, he just felt everything inside him react to something at once. A spotlight sweeping across his body, highlighting him to the world.

“What—”

“Father. He’s moved to check-ins, rather than a constant gaze.” As Michael feared, but he didn’t say that part out loud. 

Adam was trembling uncontrollably, fearful of the strange violation. “But it’s _worse_.”

“Yes,” Michael agreed. “Hopefully he will be checking on us with regularity, so we can prepare for it.”

He did not. The spotlight blared into Adam’s skull one hour, three hours, eight minutes, nine hours apart, no rhyme or reason to it, a siren screaming into his nerves without warning at an utterly unpredictable timing.

  * _why -_



Adam had been mildly jumpy before. Now with his Father’s eyes repeatedly burning into him at any moment he was wide-eyed and afraid at all times, sensitive to the smallest sensations and terrified of moving around the house or indeed doing _anything._

Michael kept them looking ‘normal’ - it was fine for _him_ , he wasn’t _real -_ “I can’t filter it when it’s coming out of nowhere,” he explained with a degree of shame, and Adam just screamed at him in response. _His_ Father - not _Adam’s_ \- Adam couldn’t, shouldn’t be _dealing_ with this -

Adam was outside the house, sitting on a bench, quietly eating a toasted sandwich Michael had cooked for him. Father glanced at him and set all of his senses off once again, startling Adam badly and making him spill his sandwich and its contents all over himself.

He burst into tears. He couldn’t live like this. Why, why, why -

Michael picked them up and carried them into the house. Adam tried to slam the brakes when he realised they were moving, but the archangel doggedly continued on. “Outside - _outside_ -”

Michael took them into the bathroom for some reason. “This will calm you down,” he suggested, his fingers already unbuttoning Adam’s shirt.

Adam shoved his way into control, horror crawling up his spine with even that small amount of skin exposed to his unloving Father. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“We are messy and upset,” Michael explained. “A shower will calm us down.”

Adam hadn’t taken a single fucking shower since they had gotten locked up in here. He _couldn_ ’ _t_ , absolutely _wouldn’t_ become naked while someone was watching him.

And Father was always watching. Even when he wasn’t.

Adam stepped into the shower - Michael kept them clean with his grace, but it was incomparable to having water run down his skin - but, he couldn’t risk Father glancing at him and seeing his naked skin. His hand came to rest on the hot water knob, his body and his will crumpling under the pressure.

“I can’t. I can’t.”

Ghostly fingers kneaded his back. It had been a long time since Michael had touched him like this. Adam must be doing really badly.

“We will get through this,” the archangel murmured, with an uncharacteristic gentleness.

“Don’t lie. This is your life, isn’t it?” Adam slid his body down the tiles of the shower wall, coming to rest on the floor as a miserable heap. “I’m not ever getting through this. This is my _eternity_.”

Michael smoothed his hair. “Once Father’s attention is turned, we can return to hiding. Then -”

“That’s not a life I’m willing to lead,” Adam said lowly. Didn’t Michael understand? He had grown too used to having zero freedom in his life that his expectations were rock-bottom - but even so -

Adam’s nerves were lit on fire and his head smacked into the tiles behind with a crack. Michael’s Father appeared just outside the shower door, peering in with concern.

“Michael? What are you doing?”

No, no, why was he _here_ \- they’d messed _up_ \- Adam felt the blood from his own head drip onto his neck.

Father came into the shower and crouched down. There was nowhere to run. Adam stared up at him dully, fear and pain clouding his mind and making him heavy all over.

“You dropped your lunch, huh?” Father said, laying a hand on Adam’s stomach and disappearing the mess there. “There we go. Good as new.”

“Go away,” Adam said, producing barely any sound despite trying his hardest to scream it. “Stop watching me. I hate it.”

“Well, I think I have to watch you,” said Father, cupping the back of Adam’s head with his hand, a cool sensation flowing through Adam’s scalp, “In case you have an accident in the shower, it looks like.”

“I didn’t have an ‘accident’, _you_ keep setting my brain on fire and of course I’m gonna hit my head,” Adam muttered.

“Setting your brain on fire?”

How _dare_ Father act puzzled and innocent after he had spent the last few weeks psychologically torturing Adam.

“When you look at me, it hurts - don’t act like you haven’t been looking at me, I can feel it…” He was tired. So so tired.

“I know you can feel it. Why is it hurting?” Father smoothed his hair - the exact same way Michael did -

“Traitor.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said, not sounding at all apologetic. “We have always found it soothing.”

“Michael?”

Adam blinked up at him. “It’s too much. Don’t look at me.”

Father frowned. “Someone has to keep an eye on you. We’re feeling a little sensitive, are we?”

“Fuck off.”

“Michael, I’m trying to help.” Liar. “What can we do to make my check-ins a little easier on Michael?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Once a day. At the same time. So it doesn’t make me a jump.”

“Ah, is that what’s upsetting you? Okay. Six times a day, every four hours. Okay?” He smiled winningly at Adam.

No, not okay. Adam didn’t want to be watched at all. But it wasn’t like he got a say in this, so why was Father pretending?

Adam didn’t say a word as Michael’s Father led him back to bed. “You like having a lie down, don’t you?” he said calmly. “Go on.”

Adam got in and let his head fall on its side, looking at the wall away from Father. “There, there,” Father said. “A couple of months and the humans will be done. Then we can look at fixing Michael. Just hold it together until then, okay?”

Adam wasn’t going to reply, didn’t think anything of it. It was Michael who took over and said, “The humans will be done? Do you mean Sam and Dean?”

“Yes. Well, all of them. It’s time for a fresh start, don’t you think?”

“A fresh - no, I don’t think.” Michael’s hands were curling into fists under the sheets. “What are you doing to them?”

“Oh - Michael, you know. The rapture, the apocalypse, and the universe ends. We can start with a clean slate in the new one.”

Michael sat up. “Why - why? Leave them in heaven if you want to start a new universe. Just leave them be.”

“What do you care?” Father said in bewilderment. “I thought you’d be happy about this -”

“Happy? Why on Earth should I be happy?”

He faltered just a little. “Well, Lucifer -”

“I am not Lucifer,” Michael growled. “ _I_ am the person who has spent _tens of thousands of years_ looking after the _entirety_ of humanity while _you_ holidayed. I have given _everything_ for them. I -”

He cut himself off immediately. Father must not know he died.

Father was scanning him with disapproving eyes. “Yes, and I thought you did a very good job, which is why I’m being so lenient with you. But this is my decision to make. You know that.”

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Michael struggled to keep the images of the insidious virus crawling through his grace and destroying him from the inside out out of his mind - Adam wasn’t ready to see those, not yet.

“See what?” Adam asked, muffled and confused.

“Well, Michael’s having a bad day,” Father muttered to himself. “He didn’t mean to snap at Papa. He’s going to be a good boy from now on. Aren’t you?” he added warningly, ruffling Michael’s hair and pushing him back down into the pillow in the same motion.

Michael didn’t even dignify that with a response, and Father left in a huff. But Michael was even angrier, _furious_ , and _Adam_ was beside himself.

“You make us play house here for _weeks_ while he’s out there planning a genocide!” he screamed at Michael.

“I didn’t know!” Michael snapped back. “I thought he was just playing with our idiot half-brothers!”

“You should have known! You should have known! He’s _your_ dad, not mine!” Adam managed to get control of one arm and slashed at his face in rage.

“Calm down,” said Michael, forcing his consciousness down. “We will deal with this. Promptly.”

“Bullshit.”

“If Father follows through with regularising his check-ins, I should be able to get us out of here. Then we can do _something._ ”

“And if he doesn’t? We stay here like a good little boy and let him delete every single person from existence?”

“Of course not. I will adapt our strategy.”

“Tch, sure you will.” This sucked. He was angry, and Michael was angry, and it was making his head and chest hurt real bad. Michael was doing his best to push him to sleep as well, but Adam wasn’t having it. He couldn’t sleep anymore. He couldn’t trust Michael.

Their next blast of privacy invasion came not four hours, but two hours and thirty seven minutes later. “See?” Adam grumbled. “He never had any intention of following through.”

But Michael, for whatever reason, was looking at the clocks in the bedroom. “The clock says it is exactly 4:00. He may be intending to do it upon the hour. We will wait for the next one.”

“Those clocks are wrong,” Adam argued. “They don’t track the time right.” They were always going way too fast or way too slow.

“I think, perhaps, our perception of time has become distorted.” It hurt Michael to admit; his internal clock had always been precise to the millisecond. But he watched the seconds hand on the clock tick around and could just barely perceive that it was not, indeed, going at about three minutes per second. 

“Or he’s put fake clocks in here to fuck with us,” Adam suggested.

“...We will wait for the next inspection before adapting our strategy,” Michael repeated, trying to keep Adam calm.

Adam would be a lot calmer without a deranged, brainwashed archangel living inside his bones. He scratched at his own skin, hoping to get him out: surprisingly, Michael let him. He believed Father would follow through, so there was no need to act like they weren’t crazy during their four hour ‘break’.

“Because Father can’t do anything wrong, right?” Adam said bitterly. Michael’s grace pulled away from him, at that.

“Father is not perfect. I know. But torturing us is not his intention.”

Adam had no such confidence in the god that would annihilate an entire species on a whim. And obviously Michael was of _some_ interest to him. Why else would they be here?

But since Michael had returned _some_ autonomy to him, Adam decided to take advantage of it by doing something Michael would really hate.

Make a mess.

The kitchen was the obvious first choice. Adam tipped drawers full of cutlery and tools onto the floor, swept food out of the fridge and cupboards and threw it at the walls. Next he went into the TV room and knocked all the furniture over, managing to break a couple of lamps in the process.

There were art supplies in the study that Adam had never touched; he took great delight in spilling paint all over the hardwood floor. The caged bird doesn’t sing, you dick, he thought angrily at Michael’s Father.

“Are we done throwing a tantrum yet?” Michael asked, as Adam wandered from room to room.

“No. I’m looking for more stuff to fuck up.”

“This serves no purpose.”

“Nothing here serves any purpose, so maybe you can get your head out of the sand and get us out of here?”

Michael _had_ to be cautious. With how poorly his last gamble had panned out…

“Okay, so let me have my fun.” His scratches were getting deeper and redder. The archangel was a disease he’d rather not be plagued with.

Michael went awfully tense and silent at that.

There was a workshop here too, metalworking and woodwork. If Adam was here by _choice_ , this house would have actually been pretty sweet. It had pretty much everything anyone could ask for.

But if he wasn’t allowed to leave, what’s the point?

Adam picked up a saw from one of the woodworking tables and examined it thoughtfully. He could make a _real_ mess with this.

No. Michael tried to force him to put it down. 

“Oh, come on. It’s not like you’ll let me die,” Adam said, trying to get the serrated blade near his skin. He managed to nick his forearm with it before Michael gave up and disintegrated the saw into dust instead.

“Hey,” Adam snapped. “Fuck off.” There was only a few drops of blood leaking from where metal had met skin. Not enough.

Adam’s physical health was easily maintained, yes, but his mental health was far more fragile and far more dangerous. Michael couldn’t let him get into the habit of self-harm -

“Well guess what, asshole, my mental health was blown into pieces long ago and the least you could do is shut up and let me have my fun.”

Michael grew tenser, grace hardening into spikes. Adam wasn’t having any fun, he was miserable. Why was he deluding himself?

“I’m having a great time. Either talk to me or shut up, you can’t do both. I hate you.”

“I hate you, as well,” Michael replied readily, and Adam blinked. “Don’t act so innocent. You know I despise disorder. This tantrum is directed at _me_.”

  * Adam slammed his head on the table-vice, feeling the warm red liquid spill out from the impacted spot. He deserved it. Michael deserved it. Adam deserved it.



Michael wrenched control of their body back once and for all and pressed two fingers to his own head. The cool sensation of his grace was what Adam _craved_ , and he gasped happily as Michael finally _fixed_ him.

Michael didn’t even acknowledge him, instead silently cleaning up Adam’s attempts at chaos. 

  * _Attempts being a key word; not even in this broken state could a reincarnation of Michael’s manage to be less than relatively tidy. Even the paint he had spilled out on the floor he had poured out in neat lines of each colour._



But Michael didn’t realise that Adam was secretly planning a coup; as he disappeared the spilled food in the kitchen, Adam quietly and quickly knocked him out of the driver’s seat and sealed him into the abyss of their heart.

Knives. There were a lot of knives in here. Adam would cut himself, and Michael would _have_ to fix him, because the idiot archangel was obsessed on appearing ‘fine’ to his Father. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

The blades were sharp and Adam’s grin was sharper as blood leaked out of the gashes he cut in his legs, arms, stomach. He marvelled at the crimson masterpiece as he collapsed to the floor, loosening Michael from his internal bonds as he quickly became woozy.

Save me. Save me.

  * It’s all he ever wanted, after all.



Michael emerged and struggled to keep them from falling unconscious. If Father found them in this state, they’d never escape. Father would go ballistic and chain them to the bed. Stupid, thoughtless human.

Breathing deeply, trying to keep his cool, Michael tried to seal up the cuts. His stomach was the most dangerous wound, so he did that first; but he was woozy, so woozy. Adam had taken too much blood in his derangement. 

His - his legs next, so he could get them back to bed. The kitchen could be dealt with later. Grace - he had _plenty_ of it, why was he not - 

“ _Heal_ ,” he whispered in frustration, and his vessel repaired itself at once. He had no reason to suffer mortal injuries, despite his human half’s current condition. He wouldn’t tolerate this.

Bed. They were going to bed. Their head was a mess of despair and a battle for control, but he carefully made his way back, clinging to the walls for support, before dumping their body on top of the blankets.

“Adam, please,” he begged. “We haven’t come all this way just to die again.”

He couldn’t allow his other half to bleed them to death in a psychotic scheme to receive self-care. It wasn’t necessary. It would cause harm.

“If you kill us, we can’t protect the humans,” he continued. “We can’t make this mistake. Not again.”

“What do you mean -” Adam pushed back for control and wrested it from an exhausted Michael; he lay on the bed, weak and panting. A familiar terror crawled its way up his throat and clawed at his tongue. “You didn’t - on purpose -”

Fall. Kill himself. Give up.

“No,” said Michael, but the archangel _existed_ to protect Adam from his own memories. If he _had_ , the archangel would _surely_ lie.

“Tell me,” Adam insisted. “Tell me.”

“No,” Michael said. “Return control to me.”

“I deserve to know how I died.”

“You will, when you are old enough to handle it. You currently have the temperament of a toddler.”

Adam’s hands clenched into the blankets and sheets - it was true, he couldn’t argue it - but he _had_ to know. “Is it because of Father? The constant surveillance driving you nuts?”

“No, I have not felt Father’s eyes on me in a long time, and particularly not like this,” Michael told him. “This is a rare situation.”

“Because you were lonely then. You missed him.” That’s what everyone said about the archangel’s, right?

“Adam, we didn’t kill ourselves,” Michael said impatiently. But that wasn’t _quite_ true, was it? He could hear the hesitation in Michael’s voice.

“What took us out then?” he said quietly, coaxingly, hoping to slip through Michael’s defences.

Michael paused. “I will tell you, if you return control of the body to me and don’t supersede my will again.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Adam slipped out at once - perhaps motivated more by the fact their body was still falling apart more than anything else - and braced himself to hear something awful.

“You will not picture this. Words only,” Michael ordered. 

“Yes, yes,” Adam said impatiently.

“There was a - a virus, eating its way through the souls in Heaven.” Michael was stumbling over the words, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “Impossible, I thought - human souls are - but the data, the evidence was there. I went out in secret to investigate.”

“Human souls are meant to be immortal,” Adam said. It wasn’t too hard to figure out which part Michael found upsetting. “You didn’t want people to think they’re not.”

“I found the virus. It was vicious - thousands of souls had been consumed in its path, at that point. Our mistake. Our failure.”

God’s failure. He had been so proud of his perfect creation, the human soul. Adam could feel Michael doing everything in his power not to think it.

“I managed to contain it to a small space in Heaven, but it got in _me_. In the end, it was mutually assured destruction.”

“You were killed by a soul-eating virus?” Adam asked, in surprise. He thought Michael would have been stronger than that. “You couldn’t call for help?”

“I could, yes,” Michael said, waves of shame emanating from him. “Raphael or a lesser angel may have been able to reach me in time.”

“But you didn’t?”

“I thought it was best that the secret die with me,” Michael said softly. “I couldn’t - couldn’t continue. Not knowing it was all a lie.”

The cold and empty feeling was one they had to share together. “You _did_ fall. On purpose.”

“No,” Michael whispered. “I didn’t know I would be reborn. I thought my existence and sins would be erased along with the virus.”

“You should have called for help.”

“Indeed? And had I spread the virus to my brothers? What then?”

Adam scowled, or at least imagined himself doing so, but - his other self had a point. 

“Are you sure it died with you?”

“That strain was eliminated. Yes.”

Adam couldn’t help but worry. “But there could be more strains up there?”

“I investigated all of the human side of Heaven, at the time, and found only one. But it’s not impossible that more could have developed in your absence.”

“We have to check.” Michael should have told someone, idiot, but it was too late for that. But if there was something rampaging up there it was imperative they handle it.

Their failure. Their responsibility.

“So long as we are sensible we should be out of here soon,” Michael promised. “I should clean the kitchen; you made quite the bloodbath.”

The heat had been in Adam’s chest; he had _needed_ Michael to flush it out.

“I know, I know,” Michael said. “Which is why I will remain dominant for now.”

Michael glanced at the clock as he rose up. “8:16? Strange. Father should have checked in on us now.”

“See? He was never planning not to fuck with us.” Adam didn’t trust Michael’s Father one bit. “We should just break out now.”

Michael frowned, but Adam had a point. “We’ll clean the kitchen first. I can’t in good conscience leave it as is.”

“Fine, fine,” Adam grumbled.

Escape probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, as when Michael entered the kitchen he found Father inspecting it with a worried frown. He glanced up at them. “What’s happened here?”

“An accident,” Michael lied, looking away.

“Hmm. I don’t think so.” Michael hadn’t been expecting to get away with that; he was a terrible liar. Father vanished the blood off the two knives he was holding and placed them somberly on the countertop.

“Were you trying to kill yourself?” Father said, to Michael’s surprise cradling his cheek as he spoke.

“No. I don’t think so.” He wasn’t sure _what_ Adam had been trying to do.

“You don’t think so?” Father echoed skeptically.

“I can fix the physical wounds,” he tried to explain.

Father’s face creased further. “Oh, Michael,” he said, softly, and paused in thought. “Is this because I yelled at you?”

Michael was confused as to how he drew that conclusion. “No, I think the main cause was you telling us that you were about to genocide the human race.”

“Us?”

Oh. Oh no no no no. And he couldn’t deny the slip-up, it would make him look even more suspicious. “Adam and I. My vessel?”

That didn’t assuage him at _all_. “Michael, you don’t have a vessel right now,” Father said, sounding even more concerned. “I’ve taken you to a higher dimension.”

Michael hadn’t realised. He should have. Stupid, stupid, stupid. No _wonder_ time had been passing so quickly -

“What did you do to my vessel’s soul?” he asked warily. Surely Father would have noticed their inseparability upon attempting to remove them -

“The soul? Well, I just put the whole thing back on Earth,” he said, shrugging. “He can figure it out.”

Father didn’t check. There must be a soulless Adam running around Earth right now. Michael brought his head into his hand in disbelief. Father didn’t check.

“Michael?” said Father, and he tried to physically make Michael look up at him. Michael didn’t know what to say or think at this point.

“Tell him we need to go to Heaven,” Adam ordered.

“I need to go to Heaven,” Michael repeated obediently.

“What? Why?”

“I have to check on something.” Adam was concerned about the state of the souls in Heaven, and Michael _had_ to follow his heart’s intuition. 

“Hmm. Okay.” Michael didn’t immediately react, and furrowed his brow after he took it in a few seconds later. _Okay?_

“Wow, that was easier than I thought,” Adam said, just as bewildered.

“What are we checking on?”

“We?”

Father smiled awkwardly. “Well, I can’t let you wander off alone in this state, can I?”

“I’m not intending to cause trouble.”

“I know. That’s not where my concern lies,” Father said while pointedly looking around at the bloodstained floor.

“Strange for him to have concern all of a sudden. If you asked him how much you cut yourself in Heaven in the last ten thousand years, he wouldn’t have a clue, would he?”

Michael lacked the boldness to say _that_ to Father’s face. In the grand scheme of things, Michael was unimportant. It was entirely up to Father’s whim to care or not.

“That’s not true,” Adam said, seething. “He can pick one or the other. My feelings aren’t toys in a toy box for him to play with at his leisure.”

That was up to Adam.

“I can take care of myself,” he told Father.

“No, I’m not so sure of that.” Father took his hand and relocated them even higher, to Michael’s old office in Heaven. “Is this where you wanted to go?”

“Father, the kitchen,” Michael said in great distress. “I didn’t clean it.” 

Father sighed and rubbed his own hair, and snapped his fingers. “There. It’s spotless. What did you want to check on?”

Michael looked around his office - not where he needed to be, but -

“They’ve ransacked it,” he observed, upset. 

“Is that why you were worried? Did you leave something important here?”

“No, of course not.” Michael kept his valuables on his person, or otherwise in dimensions not accessible to lesser beings. But it was mildly hurtful to see all of his drawers and cupboards completely upended and emptied, some locked cabinets even having been smashed on the ground in order to get at their contents. His files which he had always kept in meticulous order were gone. Michael had struggled with dyslexia, and Adam too, so they both found that incredibly heartbreaking.

“We need to go to human heaven,” he managed to tell his Father, suppressing his grief.

“Do we? Why?” 

“In case the virus is back,” he explained, and tried to fly there, but Father had a firm grip on him.

“What virus?”

“It eats through souls in Heaven. I got rid of it the first time, but what if it’s back?”

Father shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I thought we understood I’m getting rid of the humans anyway? It doesn’t matter if they are eradicated another way.”

“Well, I suppose I was hoping you’d come to your senses,” Michael muttered, unwilling to look him in the eye.

“Come to my senses? Right. I think one of us does need to come to our senses.” Father looked at him expectantly.

“So can we go have a look?” Michael tried to fly off again, and this time Father followed him instead. But Heaven had changed. Michael should have been able to fly over all of humanity’s heavens and view them at once, in their dome formation. But they had been reorganised so they were lined up in a lengthy row that stretched on for eternity.

“What’s happened here? What happened to the order?” As far as Michael could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to this new layout. And the heavens were completely closed off from one another. Where was the sense of community?

“The angels had a restructure while you were gone. It’s in alphabetical order.”

“Alphabetical -” But that made no sense. Friends and families were to be grouped together. “You ordered this restructure?”

“No, they decided to do it on their own.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do this?”

Father wrapped an arm around him and gave him a sympathetic hug. “I suppose from an administrative viewpoint, it’s easier.”

“But they’re all closed off. How can they possibly manage any of these?” Michael pulled with distress at his wing feathers. “I’m going to have to check them one by one.”

“Hmm? No, we just need a different perspective.” Father gently pulled him into a higher dimension, and the heavens gently shrank and stretched out, warped through the lens of the dimension they viewed them from. 

But it was difficult for Michael, for Adam to be here. Too much.

“Father, I can’t be here,” Michael mumbled. “I’m too small.”

“You’re nearly as big as me, Michael,” Father said, peering down at the heavens. “I can’t see anything wrong with these.”

“I’m not,” Michael protested. “I’m an infant.” Couldn’t Father _see_ how tiny Adam was? They were going to break. There wasn’t enough of them to fill the space.

Father _looked_ at Michael, and Michael and Adam both winced under the full intensity of his gaze, and then he was carrying them back to the house.

“Father,” Michael said in dismay, “We need to inspect the humans.”

“Do we?” Father had abandoned his casual disposition and was now examining Michael coldly and seriously. “They are fine, Michael, they are intact. _You_ are not.”

“I need to perform an audit -”

“No.” Father lifted him on the bed and began rummaging through his grace. Michael cried out in alarm at the sudden violation, but Father ignored him.

“Michael, what is this? Why is so much of your grace missing?” Because Adam was an infant - as Michael had explained - so the only grace remaining was his soul and his memories.

“Wait, is that true?” Adam asked in surprise. “How were you going to kill Lucifer?”

“I prepared many weapons,” Michael replied in puzzlement. “Improvisation was not on my agenda.”

Adam let out a terrified noise as Father grasped his soul rather firmly. “What is this? Is this your core? Why has it become so decentered?”

“Father, please stop. That’s my soul,” Michael pleaded, trying to wrap his grace around Adam’s soul to protect it from Father’s prying fingers.

“That’s not what I asked. The Cage didn’t do this,” Father muttered, continuing to push his fingers through Michael’s grace.

“The Cage?”

“Yes, Michael; I thought I left you in the Cage for too long and you broke, so I felt a little bit bad. Should I have been mad, instead?”

Michael swallowed. Father was using his scary voice, but his invasive fingers were currently traumatising Adam, and Michael had _one job_. “You may be mad at me, Father, but not at Adam.” Michael tried to push his hands away. “You’re scaring him. Stop. He’s an infant.”

“Adam?”

“My soul.”

Father did stop, then, in disbelief. “You gave your soul a name?”

“No, my mother did.” Michael felt like he had jumped off a cliff that towered over a sea of big, pointy rocks. There was nothing but doom approaching him now.

“You don’t have a mother.” Father’s voice was as cold as ice.

“Yes, I do. Her name is Kate Milligan and her life was not easy but she always tried her best. As opposed to my Father, whose life has been very easy indeed and yet sometimes I think he doesn’t bother to try at all.”

“Shush,” said Father, his touch still too harsh. Adam was sobbing internally. Michael was failing.

“Father, please be gentle,” he tried. “Adam is smaller and more sensitive than Michael was at full size. You must be careful.”

“Shush,” Father repeated.

In desperation, Michael launched a gravitational blast at his own Father - difficult from his current position, but with the assistance of the element of surprise managed to knock Father back a bit. He got a few seconds to soothingly stroke his other half and try to calm him down before Father angrily pinned him to the bed.

“What are you doing?” Father said, standing over him with his arms crossed.

“You’re hurting him.”

“Hurting ‘him’. Not hurting you?”

Michael hesitated. “You can tell him,” Adam said lowly. “No point trying to hide it at this point. We’ve lost.”

“You can’t hurt me, because I’m not real,” Michael explained. “I died thirty years ago. Adam is just using the memory of me to protect himself.”

There was no angry crack of thunder, no smashing of Michael’s grace. “Hmm,” said Father, searching Michael’s expression curiously before reaching into his grace again. His probing was much more tender, this time, but they still struggled as Father invaded them.

“I think you’re confused, Michael. Go to sleep. I’ll fix this mess up.”

They had no hope of resisting Father’s gentle nudge into unconsciousness.

* * *

_Papa put Michael into the crib and pulled out some of his toys for him to play with. “Papa is going out to the Garden,” he explained. “Mimi, play with your toys.”_

_Michael blinked up at Papa and Papa put one of the toys into his hands. “Play,” he repeated, and left the room._

_Michael sat and waited for Papa to come back and after a few moments went to look for him himself. He managed to climb over the wall of the crib and land on the floor below with a loud thud, and crawled out the room. There was a pool of wet red paint waiting just before the exit; it covered the baby angel’s hands and feet as he crawled through it._

_Michael went to Papa’s office and climbed up his chair, but Papa wasn’t at his desk. Michael burst into tears, and then he spotted the drawers on one side of the desk. He climbed in the top one: it was Michael-sized, nice and cozy; it tried to close in on itself once the baby had gotten in but a strategically-placed pen kept it ajar._

_Michael happily waited in Papa’s drawer until he heard his Papa’s loud, booming voice echo through the room. “What are all these footprints?” Papa asked the empty room. “I hope I don’t have a thief wandering around.”_

_Michael giggled at the sound of Papa’s voice. Papa was here._

_“They seem to be going up to this drawer that Mimi likes to crawl into,” Papa observed. “I wonder if I will find a little angel in here?”_

_Papa opened the drawer and light flooded into Michael’s eyes. “Papa,” he said, reaching out for him._

_“Oh? It’s Mimi,” Papa said, reaching in and picking him up. “Mimi, do you know who’s left all this red paint all over the house?”_

_Michael blinked up at him in incomprehension and smiled._

_“No?” Papa tickled him on the chin, and Michael giggled again._

_“Mimi is supposed to be playing with Soft Tree,” Papa scolded gently, placing the toy back in Michael’s hands. He sat down at the desk and scooped Michael and Soft Tree into his lap._

_“Awa,” Michael said to Soft Tree, poking it curiously._

_“Good Mimi,” Papa said, ruffling his soft fledgling feathers, and went to work drawing out his plans. Michael was distracted by the toy for a few minutes before he noticed, and then he wanted to join in._

_“Papa, Papa,” he requested politely, trying to grab Papa’s pen._

_“Mimi and Soft Tree want to help Papa with his designs?” Papa asked, and set them both on top of the desk. He pulled out a fresh sheaf of paper and a pen small enough for Michael’s tiny hands._

_Michael scribbled on the papers happily. He was helping. He talked to Soft Tree about his drawings like Papa talked to him sometimes._

_“Awa wa awa,” he explained._

_Papa chuckled._

* * *

Adam woke up feeling… strange.

“What happened? Where are we?” he asked Michael, but there was no response from his other half.

Was he sulking? Adam tried to feel out Michael’s grace next to his soul, and realised with a start that he couldn’t feel _either_. What —

Don’t panic, don’t panic, but it was already building in his stomach and wrapping around his neck. He couldn’t _lose_ Michael - he _was_ Michael - had someone cut him in half? He - Father - what had he done?

The bedroom he had woken up in wasn’t the same prison he had fallen asleep in. It was darker, a little cozier; Adam stumbled over to the blinds and peeled out.

They - he - wasn’t in the middle of nowhere anymore. Through the window a city sprawled out beneath them, glittering prettily in the nighttime. People, Adam hoped. There had to be people in a _city,_ right?

“Do you know where we are?” he optimistically asked his silent companion, and got the expected lack of reply. He leaned on the windowsill for a few moments, relishing the expansive view, but he reluctantly got up and went to explore wherever it was he’d been dumped. He needed to find Michael, figure out what Father had done to them.

He exited out into a narrow corridor, but the lights were on here. Actually, he was in a rather small apartment and a few steps took him into the living room slash kitchen, also lit up. A little girl was sitting on the couch, staring out the big windows covering the walls.

She turned to him before he could say a word. “Michael? Are you feeling better?” Her calm, measured tones took him off guard. She didn’t sound like a child.

“I’m fine, uh, who are you?”

With the tiniest amount of consternation she asked, “You don’t _recognise_ me?”

Huh? Oh, wait - when Adam squinted, he realised it was the girl that Michael had introduced him to the last time they had been on their Earth. The Virtue, Charity.

“Charity?” he said. “I don’t understand. How did I get here?”

“Your, um, your father dropped you off,” she explained awkwardly. “He said you needed someone to watch over you while you recovered, but you wouldn’t be able to relax around him.”

Yeah, because I hate him, Adam didn’t say. “I didn’t know you knew Father.”

“I don’t,” she said, and giggled slightly. “He’s a little bit rude, isn’t he? But, I thought, it’s Michael. You’ve helped us out so many times. So it’s okay.”

“I’m not Michael,” he told her. “I’m Adam.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, sobering up. “He said something about that.”

“He did?” Hope sparked. “Did he say what he’d done to Michael?”

She looked confused. “I was under the impression you were the same person.”

“We are,” Adam said. “But Michael’s gone. I can’t figure it out.”

“But if you are Michael, how can he be gone?”

“No - I mean - my grace and my old memories.”

“I don’t know. Um.” She bit her lip. “He comes in to visit you every four hours. Maybe you can ask when he comes by?”

“He’s sticking to the four hours?” Adam asked. Unbelievable.

“Is that not okay?”

“It’s - I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, if you don’t want him around, just let me know and I won’t let him come in.” She curled her hands into fists meaningfully.

“That’s not going to stop him,” Adam said drily. 

“Yeah it will! You just watch!”

Adam was lying in bed trying to find Michael and his own soul forty minutes later when Father quietly entered the room. 

“Adam?” he said, flicking the lights on. “You’re awake. Why were you lying in the dark?”

“I like the dark,” Adam said, strategically moving his body away from Father. Not that there was anywhere to run to.

“You’re scratching again,” Father said, and Adam looked down in surprise at the now-familiar dark red lines covering his skin. “You have to stop.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Adam said shortly. There was a more important issue to address. “What have you done with Michael?”

Father sat on the bed. “Adam, you’re Michael. I thought you knew that. Or did only Michael know?”

“I know,” Adam said. “I mean the part of me that is Michael. He’s gone.”

Father’s expression cleared. “Ah. No, he’s not gone. He’s still in here.” He poked Adam’s chest. “You’re in here. All of you. I promise.”

“I can’t feel his grace anymore. Or my soul.”

“You won’t be able to feel your grace for a long time. You’re very young,” Father explained, as if that made perfect sense. “You have to grow into your soul, and then, most likely, you will become too big for it and absorb it into your grace instead. But for now, it’s all packed away in that little box.”

“In my soul?” Adam asked, feeling very lost, but Father smiled and nodded.

“You were unable to reunite properly with your grace on your own. You can’t exactly perform surgery on your own soul, so I understand why you had to make do. I did it for you while you were asleep.”

“Are you expecting me to thank you? I was struggling to put myself back together for ten years. You didn’t exactly rush in to help.”

“I know,” said Father.

“You let me sit in the Cage for ten years when you _know_ we’re claustrophobic.”

“Yes, I know,” Father repeated.

Adam raised his eyebrows. “But you don’t care, is that it?”

“I _didn’t_ care,” Father said, on the verge of exasperation, and he brushed his hair back with annoyance. “My priorities have not been well-thought out lately. I admit I’ve made a few mistakes. But I’m working on it.”

“Oh, well, then,” Adam muttered. His Father probably didn’t even _know_ the word sorry, let alone ever think to utter it.

“I thought Michael was fine and just being lazy in how he handled the Apocalypse. The Cage was a punishment, so of course I didn’t check in on him. ...This was a mistake. I _am_ sorry, you know.”

Adam winced. “Can you read my mind?”

“Yes, I can. But I think it would be best if you spoke your problems out loud from now on.”

“Why? So you can ignore me for ten thousand years?”

“I - no…” Father said. “Adam, I was upset -”

“ _Everyone_ was upset. He broke a woman’s soul and turned her into a demon.” Michael had ranted about it a lot. “Do you think you’re the only one with feelings?”

Father sighed. “It’s true that I have been under the impression that _none_ of the four of you cared about the humans at all. Yes.”

“What?” Adam said, bewildered. “But we’ve been looking after them, haven’t we? Raphael and me. And the other one.”

“Gabriel. Yes, I know. I’m not sure about Gabriel. But Raphael, I know, never liked them. He just wasn’t the rebelling type.”

“And you think the same of me,” Adam said. He was disappointed, oddly enough.

“Oh - no. I just thought you didn’t really have an opinion on them,” Father clarified. “And then you went and died for them.”

“I didn’t die for humanity’s sake,” Adam mumbled. It was because of his own weakness. Michael’s cowardice.

“I can’t agree with that,” Father said, his smile broad. “You died because you believed in them. Don’t let your self-doubt muddle up the facts.” He ruffled Adam’s hair. “And then you insisted on going back to look for the virus to kill you. Because you were worried.”

No, because he was _stupid_ \- Adam hadn’t even _thought_ of catching the virus a second time -

Father squeezed his shoulder. “Michael was always an optimistic kid. I can see you lean a bit the other way, but still, there’s no shame in thinking things will turn out better the second time.”

“Really,” said Adam sourly. “So you’ve decided to take that philosophy and delete the universe, ‘cause the next one might turn out better.”

Father froze but said, “No, no. I decided against that. Thought it would be more constructive to work on restoring Heaven to its former structure. Its current state upset Michael quite a bit, so…”

“You - what?” Adam collapsed on the bed as the tension was knocked out of him. “You cancelled the Apocalypse? Again?”

“Yes, yes. Well, it didn’t seem worth it. There’s some life in this universe yet.”

Adam couldn’t believe this. What an anti-climax. Unless Father was going to turn around and do another Apocalypse next year.

“No, no, I promise,” Father said quickly. “My hands are off Earth for now. I’m focusing on Heaven.”

“Yeah,” Adam said numbly. “Didn’t all the angels die?”

“Yes,” said Father. “The mass-produced angel thing didn’t end up working out. I’ll have another think about staffing.”

“Do you need help?” Adam asked, not even sure why he was offering. Must be Michael-doormat-residue.

“No, Adam has to stay on Earth. You don’t want to be stuck up in Heaven with Papa, do you? I thought you were feeling lonely.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Father patted him on the shoulder. “I know you’ll feel a little handicapped now that your grace is contained within your soul. But you’ll be healthier like this. Your wings will take the longest to grow back, but there are plenty of other ways to get around.”

“You cut off my wings?” Adam said, thunderstruck.

“No,” Father said quickly, “Your wings are a physical manifestation of your grace. Until you have enough grace that it exists in large quantities outside your soul, you won’t be able to manifest any. But you may be able to use your grace for small spells, in a few decades.”

“In a few decades? I can’t heal myself until then?”

“No, you can’t,” and Father’s voice suddenly turned very stern. “No cutting.”

“Oh…”

“Now, the young lady here,” Father said abruptly. “I placed you here because she and her friend treated you quite kindly earlier. Was that a good judgement? Or I should place you elsewhere?”

“Um, it’s okay, probably. They’re Michael’s friends. I don’t really know them.”

Father paused. “Well, if you decide otherwise, let me know. I need to know where you are to keep an eye on you.”

“Sure, what’s your number?” Adam rolled his eyes, but then Father actually passed him a whole phone.

“Here. This one can contact me. Your old phone was with your body.” Father winced. “It, er, died pretty quickly without a sound mind at the wheel.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a sound mind.”

“You know what I mean.” Father stood up. “I’ll get out of your hair. Be good.” And with that, he left.

Be _good_ ? Adam had spent so much time just trying to _survive_ , he didn’t even know what that meant.

He stared at the wall for a while. Michael was gone, huh?

But not forgotten.

He returned to the kitchen, and Charity looked up at him anxiously. “Hey, how’d it go? I could hear you guys talking.”

“It’s fine,” Adam said. “I was just confused.”

“Oh, good,” she said, relieved. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Uh - oh, I don’t mind.” Adam glanced at the nearest clock. It was _well_ past midnight. But he was a little bit hungry, he supposed.

He watched Charity cook for them. He felt a little bad; he felt like Father had seen someone literally called _Charity_ and decided to take advantage of her at once. He’d have to repay her. Pay rent, or something. Did she actually own this apartment?

“I guess I’ll start by finding a job,” he suggested, and she turned and nodded encouragingly.

The last time he had said that, Michael had made fun of him for it.

Adam burst into tears.

* * *

_Adam crept downstairs. It was four a.m., on his mom’s night off, and he didn’t want to wake her up._

_It was moot. Kate was in the living room, watching the TV with the volume turned down almost to zero. She glanced up at him as he tried to sneak into the kitchen._

_“Adam? What are you doing up at this hour?”_

_“Nothing,” he said. “Just getting some water.”_

_She frowned. “Did you have a nightmare again?”_

_Adam had been having nightmares since he was little. Even as a teenager, they were always the same._

_“Yeah,” he admitted. “I was the monster again. I felt like I had more claws than normal, this time.”_

_“You could have all the claws in the world and you still wouldn’t be a monster,” Kate scolded gently. She got up from the couch. “Let me make you a hot chocolate.”_

_“No, Mom - relax -”_

_“Nope, not happening. Go back to bed. I’ll bring it right up.”_

_She put a marshmallow in it too. And whipped cream. She always did._

* * *

Adam sat at the cafe, hunched over his phone. His texts to Father so far had all been along the same lines: I think I’m having a heart attack, help I’m trapped in an earthquake - and his responses all the same: you are having a panic attack. Go to bed and I will calm you down.

So this one was in an entirely new territory. He desperately wanted to send it - _needed_ Father to agree to it - but he worried that after he hit the little arrow, a smiting was coming his way. Or, worse, Father would be so angry he’d backflip on the whole “cancelled genocide” thing.

But it wasn’t an unreasonable request. Father had no right to be mad at this, Adam told himself, swallowing deeply. Even though it would offend him to his core.

He closed his eyes and hit send.

_Papa, can you take me to visit Mom? I miss her._

**Author's Note:**

> It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
> 
> Hebrews 10:31


End file.
